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Croft Poles is a family owned company that has been involved in the Kauri, Hikurangi and Opuawhanga industries and communities for over 100 years. They specialise in pole and timber manufacture and wholesale and are 100% family owned by Darrell, Jeremy and Felice Croft, who are all direct descendents of the founders of the business that was started in 1916. Darrell is 4th generation and Felice and Jeremy are 5th generation.

Located in Opuawhanga from 1916, the original processing site started to prove too small around the mid-1990s for their production and sales requirements at the time. After hunting around for a potential new site, in 1997 they purchased the much larger and more centrally located site on State Highway One in Kauri, which they still operate from today.

Originally the Managh Bros Sawmill site, Croft Poles purchased it from the Carter Holt group, who has closed the site in the early 90s. At the time the purchase was finalised in 1997, Croft Poles was operating out of two processing sites in Opuawhanga and Awanui. The decision was made to focus on closing the Awanui site first and shift all processing equipment down to Kauri, with many of the Awanui site staff transferring too which was a great thing as it meant they were able to hang onto a lot of their skilled processing staff.

Upon completion of the Awanui site closure and transfer, the focus shifted to doing the same thing with the Opuawhanga site. This transfer would prove to be a bigger undertaking as it was the larger site of the two original processing sites. After many months of hard work to ensure minimal disruption to processing and staff, the transfer was completed on time, and the Opuawhanga site was closed in March 1998.

Since 1998, they have gone from strength to strength and have invested in new technology and increased processing capacity such as the new sawmill that they installed in 2016. Directly employing 75 staff (68 of which are based in Whangārei at the Kauri site), they are active supporters of local non-profit groups such as schools and charities within the Kauri and Hikurangi communities and will continue to be so for many years to come.

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